BREENBERGH, Bartholomeus

This painting represents Diana and her nymphs resting after a hunt with two satyrs spying on them. The picture is painted on a single plank of oak, with original bevels on the reverse on all four sides.

Elijah was a Hebrew prophet, a forceful character who vigorously opposed the cult of Baal among the Israelites. During a prolonged drought Elijah went to dwell by the brook Cherith which still ran. But the brook dried up so Elijah moved on to the city of Zarephath where he met a widow gathering sticks who gave him food and drink. The widow’s son was mortally sick so Elijah carried him upstairs where he ‘stretched himself upon the child three times’ and called upon God. By this means the child was revived (I Kings 17:8-24).

Breenbergh painted this subject several times.

In this landscape Breenberg composes an idealized view of the Eternal City, represented by some of its most famous monuments, which the artist had sketched from life numerous times. Among the elements he includes is Michelangelo’s statue of Moses, which at that time was considered to be equal in quality to the sculpture of Antiquity. The statue is shown in reverse, which might suggest that Breenberg copied it from an engraving.

Breenbergh returned to Amsterdam from Italy by 1633. He crafted here meticulous Italianate settings for biblical themes such as this picture. He marked the city as Egyptian by his inclusion of an obelisk, but the church at upper right, in front of which Joseph authorizes the sale, faithfully copies a Roman church. As in many seventeenth-century paintings, a vaguely classical town basking in rosy light sufficed to evoke a Mediterranean, biblical past.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 5 minutes):

�tienne Nicolas M�hul: Joseph, aria

This small, signed and dated painting is Breenbergh’s first known work and differs significantly from his later production. In the early 1620s, it must have looked rather archaic, relying on early works by Bril for the rocky formation and the temple at Tivoli on the right.

Breenbergh was born in Deventer and there is reason to believe as a youth he was apprenticed in Amsterdam to Pieter Lastman, Jacob or Jan Pynas, or a member of their entourages. Lastman and the Pynas brothers had been in Italy where they responded to Elsheimer’s evocative landscapes.

Breenbergh’s production as a painter in Rome is still ill-defined; determining its character is complicated by the similarity of his paintings to Poelenburgh’s and his readiness to assimilate aspects of the work of other artists. However, there is no question that he made a large number of fresh, carefully observed pen and wash drawings of the intense sunlight and transparent shadows of the Italian countryside and its buildings and ruins. These sketches, his most original creations, anticipate the luminous daylight drawings Claude made after his second arrival in Rome in 1627. Indeed, some are so dangerously near to the French landscapist’s sketches that they have been mistaken for his work. The drawing of the Ruins of the City Walls, near Porta S Paolo, Rome has been catalogued as a Claude in spite of Breenbergh’s perfectly genuine signature on the sheet.

This is one of the several version the artist painted of this subject. The biblical story is set in a bright Mediterranean landscape.

The painting is signed and dated lower centre.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 5 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: Moses, Moses’ Prayer

Breenbergh made contact with Lastman straightaway after his return to Amsterdam from Rome. That he was impressed by Lastman’s paintings can be seen in the distinct Lastmanian character of the crowd of figures in his The Preaching of St John the Baptist. But his own contribution to the painting of the religious subject (one of the most popular in seventeenth-century Holland, probably because of the importance the Dutch placed on preaching the word of the Gospel) is new, and more significant. It is evident in his skilful integration of the figures into the vast panoramic Italianate landscape, his full control of light and atmospheric effects, and the pronounced accent provided by huge imaginary classical ruins inspired by the remains of the Colosseum.

Rather as some figures in the crowd attend less to the preacher than to people nearby, the viewer’s glance is drawn to secondary figures, especially the spectacularly plumed soldier in the centre of the painting. Only a firsthand inspection of the painting allows one to appreciate the variety of intriguing individuals who surround John the Baptist. Figures mounted on camels, horses, and donkeys represent different social stations; women range from apparent princesses to impoverished peasants.

The Preaching of St John had been a popular subject in Netherlandish art since the time of Joachim Patenier. The inclusion of exotically dressed characters in outdoor preaching scenes was common from at least the time of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose The Sermon of St John the Baptist was known through many versions by his sons.